International Environmental Law: National REDD+ Strategy in Ghanaby Isaac Abugri | 19-08-2018 00:43 |
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Environmental laws are the standards that governments establish to manage natural resources and environmental quality. The broad categories of ?natural resources? and ?environmental quality? include such areas as air and water pollution, forests and wildlife, hazardous waste, agricultural practices, wetlands, and land use planning. In the United States, some of the more widely known environmental laws are the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act. The body of environmental law includes not only the text of these laws but also the regulations that implement and the judicial decisions that interpret this legislation. ( source: Understanding Global Change: Earth Science and Human Impacts) Ghana joined the international REDD+ Readiness Programme through the World Bank?s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) in 2008 and prepared its REDD+ Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) which was approved in 2010. The R-PP outlines the process by which the Government of Ghana will develop its National Strategy and the supporting mechanisms and processes for participating in and implementing REDD+. These mechanisms include decreasing discharges from deforestation and woodland debasement, to improving and rationing stocks in a more extended term; angles which constitute the basics of Ghana's drive in the availability procedure towards an effective implementation of REDD+. Ghana?s current deforestation rate is an issue of grave concern considering the current rate of deforestation and forest degradation (2% annual loss of forest cover in Ghana). This poses a significant threat to ecosystem services and functions that support the predominantly agricultural economy and threatens the supply of foreign exchange from forest resources. Ghana?s R-PP identified the principal drivers of deforestation and degradation as agricultural expansion (50%), wood harvesting (35%), population and development pressures (10%), and mining and mineral exploitation (5%). Unlike other REDD+ countries facing frontier deforestation, Ghana?s deforestation pathway is one of incremental degradation leading to deforestation. Recognizing the national and worldwide significance of this activity, Ghana recognizes that while the idea of REDD+ is moderately clear, the activities required to accomplish REDD+ are complicated and multidimensional. The Ghana National REDD+ Strategy is therefore meant to serve as a guide and framework for achieving REDD+, providing an over-arching set of activities and priorities for the future, and not a policy that is set in stone. The Ghana National REDD+ Strategy (GNRS) will retain sufficient flexibility and openness such that it can be reviewed, modified, adapted and even re-written over time as conditions, experiences, and circumstances change, and as new opportunities emerge. (source: https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/sites/fcp/files/2015/April/Ghana%20National%20REDD%2B%20Strategy%20Final.pdf)
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